Continental Shift
by Nancy Brown
Summary: Melody Williams is a geography teacher.


Spoilers: post AGMGTW, pre TWoWS  
Warnings: character death  
AN: Written for Trope Bingo square: kiss to save the day (cool parts cribbed shamelessly from "Pleasantville")

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Melody Williams is a geography teacher.

Every day, she wakes up in her comfortable bed in the attic of her parents' house. The red light of dawn stretches into her room, warming her. She crawls from her bed to wash, to brush, and to eat her breakfast, and she walks the twisty lane all the way into Upper Leadworth where she teaches at the grammar school.

She knows her pupils very well, having seen them every day since they were wee. They file into her classroom, some slouching, some playing with their pencils and notebooks, most very bored. She understands the boredom, really she does, but Miss Williams has a job to do. She stands in front of the classroom, and she teaches her students about the world.

"This is Main Street," she says, indicating the map. "It goes all the way through Upper Leadworth, through Leadworth proper, and into Lower Leadworth. This is the crossroad at Knowle Way."

She smiles as she shows them Knowle Way. She doesn't really feel the smile, but it's expected. "Your assignment for tomorrow is to sketch the crossroad. After that, we'll discuss the many beautiful lakes and ponds in the Leadworth area."

She teaches five classes like this, and two writing classes. One of her students is writing a fantasy story where the Earth has a moon. Melody encourages imagination, but she knows the child will be reprimanded at home for having such a strange idea. Strange ideas aren't encouraged, not the idea of moons, nor stars, nor roads that go out of this village. The world ends at the edges of Leadworth. The days are red-gold, the nights are blue-purple. There are six hundred thirty two people who have ever lived.

These things are facts. Melody Williams is a geography teacher. Obviously, she knows these facts.

Over dinner that night, she tells her parents, "One of my students today wrote a story about Earth having a moon. It was the most remarkable thing."

"Could be worse," says her mum. "When I was little, I had to see the psychiatrist because I kept drawing pictures of stars." She gets a quiet little smile, the one that says she knows more than she's letting on, the one that sends Dad's face into a soft frown.

"Amy ... " he says, like he always does. Mum gets up from the table, taking her plate to the sink and then pouring herself a glass of wine.

"It's fine," Melody says, staring down at her food. "I won't bring it up again."

Melody Williams is a geography teacher, but at blue-purple night, she climbs out of her attic window and onto the roof. She stares up at the blank dome above her, fading to indigo-black at the highest peak, and she squints until the pinprick pain in her eyes makes stars appear that she knows cannot be there.

Below her, from a cracked window, she can hear the flowing echoes of her parents' voices. They don't argue, not exactly, not ever, but she has been aware all her life of an underlying row. Something is fundamentally wrong with their marriage, and there are nights when she wonders if that mistake is her. She has no siblings. She doesn't remember having friends as she grew up. She doesn't properly remember growing up, come to that. She has the memory of receiving her teaching certification, and not a single memory of attending university. How could she? The world is Leadworth is the world.

" ... tell her," says Dad through the crack in the window.

"No!" Mum's voice is louder. "We can't lose her again, Rory. I won't."

Melody reclines on the roof, looking for stars that don't exist. She teaches children about a tiny village, but her heart thrums to dreams of galaxies. She knows what stars are, just as her mother did. Is she mad? Was Mum until she learned not to say such things?

And then, like a twist in the wind, Melody is no longer alone on the roof.

She would be frightened, but she can't remember ever being frightened of anything. "Hello," she says.

"Hello." He looks to be her age, early to mid-twenties, very shy. "Are you Melody? Melody Pond?"

"Melody Williams," she corrects him. "My mother's maiden name was Pond."

"Ah yes, Melody Williams, of the Roman Williamses." That's utter nonsense, but she lets it pass. Dad does have a penchant for the time period.

"Do we know each other?"

"Yes. No. Not yet."

Curious, but Melody is a creature of curiosity, and for the first time in a long time, hers is piqued. "I didn't get your name."

"And you won't, unless we restart the timeline."

Melody blinks.

Something that isn't her flashes images in front of her inner eye: star clusters and rainforests, and deserts, and diamond mountains, and inhuman monsters, and lifeforms as large as a nebula.

As the vision fades, she senses the loss keenly, like a father grieving a lost child, like a soldier who's lost her arm. "Bring it back," she moans.

"I can't. I've spent a lifetime trying to find you here. Time is disjointed without you in it, Melody Pond. You and I have an appointment at a fixed point, maybe more than one. I'm not sure yet. But your parents are so clever, and they loved you so much. They knew I couldn't pull you out of time for them, but they begged and they bargained until they found a way. They found you, and they brought you here. They gave you this life, and stole away the life you were meant to live, and time itself is flowing around this little world they have set aside."

Melody watches this stranger on the roof speaking madness. She looks up again at the dark sky. "Are there stars beyond the dome?"

"No."

Her head snaps back. That's the wrong answer. She knows it's wrong.

"But there will be, if you choose to come with me. Then time will flow again, and the stars will shine."

His eyes are downcast.

"But?"

"But Melody Williams will never exist. Melody Pond will, and she will become someone remarkable, someone new."

She looks at her hands. Her arms, her legs, the colour of her flesh and the shape of her nose, all these things are from her parents, her grandparents. Melody Williams is a geography teacher, and she is a good girl who still lives with her Mum and Dad. She can count all the ponds in the world.

She wonders if she will be able to count all the stars.

Below her, her parents' voices have gone quiet. If they come up here, if they see the stranger, if they know what Melody is planning, it will break their hearts. So she won't tell them.

"What do I have to do?"

"Come with me. If you leave the bubble of reality, it will collapse, and time will move on again."

"What if I don't?"

"You know, I don't know that I've ever considered that you wouldn't. But if you choose to stay, time stays like this: frozen outside, unchanging within. You teach geography for the rest of eternity, and you never grow old. Your parents stay with you forever. For some people, it's quite like Heaven."

She considers this. "No. It sounds like the opposite." She reaches for his hand. Together, they help each other to a precarious stance on the rooftop.

"Do you want to say goodbye to Amy and Rory?"

"Will the other Melody see them again?"

"Oh yes. I promise."

Melody Williams gives a sad little smile, the same one her father does when her mother mentions the stars. "Then I'll let her give my regards."

The young man is handsome, in a geeky fashion, all old man's clothes and chin. She likes him, likes him more than she can remember liking anyone else she's ever met. She places her hands on his shoulders. "How do I come with you, then?"

He twists his mouth and fumbles through words that aren't really words, but Melody catches on, and before he can mutter his way into trouble, she bends into a kiss.

As the world restarts and Melody Williams ends, she sees stars.

* * *

The End

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My three favourite words are, "I liked this."


End file.
